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Monday, March 12, 2012

Pride Center of San Antonio wants your feedback

A social statistics class at Trinity University is conducting a survey of the LGBTQ population in San Antonio. The group wants to know what the LGBTQ population looks like in the River City and what challenges people in this city have experienced because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

This survey is being completed for the Pride Center of San Antonio, a community center project currently undertaken by local activists. The Pride Center wants to know what sorts of programming the community would like such a center to have.

While the survey will be completed on behalf of the Pride Center, the results will also be retained by Dr. Amy Stone, sociology professor at Trinity. Dr. Stone does research and community work related to sexuality, gender, homelessness, and LGBTQ ballot initiatives/ordinances.

The survey seeks to confirm whether people have ever experienced harassment or discrimination because of their sexual orientation or sexual identity. Activists, students, educators, and policymakers are currently having discussions around a non-discrimination ordinance in San Antonio.

If the survey results show that people have experienced discrimination (by law enforcement, by public officials, or by potential employers, for example), then the data could substantiate the claim that there is a real need for LGBTQ discrimination protection in San Antonio and that such persons should be a protected class.

Christine Breit, a student helping to organize the project, says, "We want our survey to be representative of the LGBTQ population in San Antonio, reaching as many people as possible, in some ways operating more like a census than simply a survey. Like the national census, we won't get everyone, but hopefully the surveys we collect will help us to gather a snapshot of what LGBTQ looks like in San Antonio in 2012."

Over 250 surveys have been collected thus far, but the survey will close on March 30th.